James Thomas Haliburton

James first saw the light of day in Stillwater Oklahoma; where the wind goes sweeping across the plains, interrupted only by red dirt cliffs and monuments to Garth Brooks. At the age of five he moved to Amarillo Texas via a short stint in Illinois where his parents took part in a scientific study to improve upon perfection and had two more children. The study failed, as James predicted it would, but he got two siblings. The untamed plains of the Texas Panhandle suited James, he learned ride a horse, rope a calf, make sensible and utilitarian fashion choices, safely and accurately handle a range of fire arms, and operate a Compaq 486 DX; upon which he never survived the Oregon trail, but managed to master AutoCAD at early age. His grandfather was known to say “Why can’t he play in the sandbox like those other kids? Why is he always getting into my things and building contraptions? Did you see that pulley system he made to hoist himself into the tree by his sturdy leather belt that has his name on it?” James abandoned the monikered leather belt as his creations began to spread his infamy and he won the blue ribbon at the tri-county fair art show in the second grade. Even though it was the Texas panhandle and the word “art” has a different contextual meaning, his grandmother was so proud, she took an add out in the paper announcing James’ precocious creativity. It was not long before James made a name for himself in the public school system. He was known far and wide for drawing through entire classe periods, ignoring homework assignments that did not involve detailed creations explained utilizing a dazzling array of graphite pencils, from 9B to 9H, line weights being an important communication tool. He failed chemistry to his father complete discombobulation, but aced physics, which garnered the same reaction from his father. He took up carpentry, mechanics, auto-body restoration, and creative writing about far off lands where people valued creativity and a man was not measured by his prowess on the football field. Deciding Architecture held the answer, James set off to hone his skills in the crucible of a design education. After completing his undergraduate degree James decided to try his hand at organized violence and took up rugby. As it turns out many smart people play rugby, the smartest give it up for graduate school, probably because they want to get a professional degree, take nine licensing exams, become LEED accredited, fall in love with data, and pursue doctoral studies, but I’m just spit balling here. James is now partner in a practice in Bryan that primarily focuses on K-12 educational facilities. James has traded in his pencils for computational design tools and focuses his time on figuring out how to leverage technology to produce better buildings. He has still never needed his lasso skills, but remains confident he could employ them if they were required. He also maintains a concealed carry permit, because, well, it’s Texas after all.

Dr. Haliburton is interested in building information modeling, computation in design, digital fabrication, professional architectural practice, and proper use of the Oxford Comma.